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Chapter 3 the Viking Diaspora Introducing the Viking Diaspora The Chapter 3 The Viking Diaspora Introducing the Viking Diaspora The Long, Broad Viking Age – Continuities in Time and Space Archaeologists recognise that Scandinavia is characterised by ‘remarkable patterns of continuity which link the distant past to the present’.1 These patterns can be seen, not just in archaeological evidence, but in many cultural practices particularly associated with the Viking Age. The continuities suggest that some evidence for the Viking Age is best considered in a chronological context broader than even the generous framework of 750-1100. This broader chronological context was outlined in Chapter 1, where it was argued that it should be extended to c. 1500. Because the Viking Age is the period when many Scandinavians left Scandinavia, often permanently, it is also important to widen the geographical range, and consider evidence from all the areas touched by Scandinavian settlement in that period. Just as much of the evidence stretches the chronological boundaries of the Viking Age, so there is also much evidence, whether natural, artefactual or linguistic, that stretches those geographical boundaries, and which can only be considered in the context of the larger Viking world. This geographical framework was outlined in Chapter 2, above. 1 Hodder and Hutson 2003, 140. 1 The purpose of this chapter is to show by means of a small number of examples how this long, broad Viking Age works in practice, in connection with various kinds of natural, artefactual and linguistic evidence for the Viking Age. This does not mean that there is no space for the local, the regional and the otherwise particular. There have been some recent studies which have emphasised local variations in cultural practices even within Scandinavia, let alone outside it, and which have therefore argued against any pan-Scandinavian, unifying concept of the Viking Age, indeed against any overarching concept including the word ‘Viking’.2 It would of course be surprising if there was not variation of many kinds across a long period of time and a very broad and varied geographical range. Yet certain continuities, both chronological and geographical, must also be present if the Viking Age and its aftermath are justifiably to be termed a diaspora. Some such continuities are outlined here to demonstrate that, even allowing for local regional variation, some aspects of the Viking Age have a greater reach in both space and time. The term ‘diaspora’ will also be explored more closely, particularly in relation to this question of continuity vs. variation. It will be suggested that ‘diaspora’ is precisely the term that can resolve this paradox. The processes of diaspora counteract the tendency to variety and difference by selecting and emphasising certain cultural features and thereby creating continuity across time and space, and by discovering or even manufacturing other aspects of continuity. This can be seen across the range of natural, artefactual and linguistic evidence, and across both the chronological and geographical range. 2 E.g. Svanberg 2003, I. 2 Natural Evidence What has been defined as ‘natural evidence’ (see ch. 1) is in many ways the most difficult to incorporate into a diasporic understanding of the Viking Age, which is predominantly concerned with cultural processes best represented by the artefactual and linguistic evidence. However, natural evidence is still extremely useful in understanding the migrations that were the prerequisite of diaspora, as outlined in Chapter 2. The natural environment is always changing, and those changes which mark significant events in the Viking Age have to be considered in the context of the environmental and climate change that are a constant in human history, and which are sometimes caused by humans and sometimes not. The previous chapter has shown some of the impacts of Scandinavian settlers on their new environments, both the pristine and the already inhabited. Some of this research has placed the Scandinavian environmental impact in a longer historical context, such as the destruction of Iceland’s original woodland, a process that seems to have spanned many centuries from the settlement era to the early modern period. Other research is still in the development phase, for example the strontium stable isotope analysis of sheep’s wool which shows promise for the future provenancing of textiles and therefore a better understanding of patterns of both trade and migration.3 But the most obvious example of natural evidence from a much later period that has been used to illuminate Scandinavian activities in the Viking Age is that of population genetics. Case Study – Genetics 3 Frei et al. 2009. 3 Most genetic studies purporting to give insights into Viking Age migrations are in fact based on inferences from the genetic patterns of current populations, on the basis that a large enough, well-chosen sample will reflect the history of that population in some measure. A classic example is Iceland which had some important advantages for DNA studies as the technology for these burgeoned in the 1990s. Its population is small, enabling the recording of DNA information for the whole population, primarily for the purposes of medical research, but with side benefits for historical research. And the history of that population is well-known, at least in outline, with no significant immigration since its settlement in the Viking Age, so justifying the assumption that the late twentieth-century population was a good proxy for the founding population over a thousand years ago.4 These studies produced the much- touted results which identified the origins of the Icelanders as being both in Norway, and in Britain and Ireland. As already noted in the previous chapter, this result was not unexpected, but the scientists claimed to be able to establish the nature of these origins in more detail. In particular, they claimed to have demonstrated that there was a considerable difference between the ancestry of the founding male population, over two-thirds of which had DNA similar to the present population of Norway, and the ancestry of the founding female population, two-thirds of which conversely seem to have had their origins in the Celtic parts of the British Isles.5 Since those pioneering studies, there is a greater recognition of the problematic nature of such historical DNA studies based on modern populations. Comparisons of founding populations with the current populations of their supposed 4 Gillham 2011, 12-19. 5 Helgason et al. 2000a; 2000b; 2001. 4 homelands depend on the genetic evidence for those homeland populations, which may have its own problems of quantity and quality (and nowhere is as thoroughly mapped as Iceland). Also, such comparisons do not take into account any changes there might have been in the homeland populations since the Viking Age, not a topic which has been much studied in, for example, Norway. Furthermore, small populations like Iceland (and even more so the Faroes) are particularly susceptible to genetic drift, in which various factors eliminate some genetic lines from the population creating bottlenecks between past and present population structures. These factors include disease, in particular epidemics, and famine, both of which are known to have made a substantial reduction in the Icelandic population, and emigration, which was considerable in the nineteenth century.6 Geneticists are of course aware of all of these issues, and they use mathematical modelling to get round some of the problems, but more popular presentations often ignore these problems with the evidence and simplify the results.7 The scientific studies are also subject to reinterpretation in what has been called ‘applied genetic history’. The reduction of an individual’s complex genetic history to a matter of ‘Viking descent’ plays into the creation of individual and familial narratives of origin and belonging, which in turn affect the self-selection of those who submit themselves to testing.8 Any discussion of the value of the genetic evidence must take these factors into account. In larger populations, particularly in England, where surnames have been established since the Middle Ages, the obvious connection between the Y- 6 Gillham 2011, 13; Karlsson 2000, 234-8. 7 Thomas 2013. 8 Scully et al. 2013. 5 chromosome and surnames, both being passed down from father to son, has enabled the better-targeted selection of samples.9 In areas with high immigration in modern times, descendants of these more recent immigrants can be excluded through the selection of subjects with surnames attested in the area in late medieval times, giving a population sample chronologically closer to, and therefore more likely to be representative of, the historical population. A study of just such a population sample in the north-west of England demonstrated a substantial proportion of members (in the region of 50%) whose direct male ancestor had a Y-chromosome type most commonly found in Norway, a fact which was then explained by the Viking Age settlement of the area already suggested by place-names, archaeology and some documentary sources.10 Thus, studies from both Iceland and the north-west of England have shown that modern population genetics can make a contribution to understanding Viking Age migrations, though the limitations of and constraints on such evidence must always be borne in mind. Also, like all natural evidence, but unlike, on the whole, the artefactual and the linguistic evidence, genetics provides insights which depend on the deployment of modern scientific methods, insights which could not possibly have been available to people in the Viking Age itself. For this reason, the natural evidence is a useful check on the artefactual and linguistic evidence, which was actually produced by people in the past, and vice versa. For example, the genetic study of the north-west of England can only tell us that some males of Norwegian descent, perhaps in considerable numbers, must have passed through the area and 9 King and Jobling 2009.
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